“A wonderful treat . . . Masello [is] a master entertainer unafraid to pull out all the stops.”—Chicago TribuneBenvenuto Cellini, master artisan of Renaissance Italy, once crafted a beautiful amulet prized for its unimaginable power—and untold menace. Now the quest to recover this legendary artifact depends upon one man: David Franco, a brilliant but skeptical young scholar at Chicago’s world-renowned Newberry Library. What begins as a simple investigation...

A tale of supernatural horror set on an eerie estate known as Arcadia from the author of The Einstein Prophecy.When Peter Constantine inherited a vast, remote estate, his life began to change. Free at last from money worries, Peter and his wife, Meg, could relax—and Peter could explore his new, mysterious home. From the thick woods, the winding trails, the bizarre, sensual sculpture, came a pulsing, ancient call that stirred his very soul. Then he heard th...

Nearly one hundred years ago, a desperate young woman crawled ashore on a desolate arctic island, carrying a terrible secret and a mysterious, emerald-encrusted cross. A century later, acts of man, nature, and history converge on that same forbidding shore with a power sufficient to shatter civilization as we know it.Army epidemiologist Frank Slater is facing a court-martial, but after his punishment is mysteriously lifted, Slater is offered a job no one else wants...

In the crystalline caves beneath an Italian lake, the fossil of a clawed creature seemingly older than the earth has been disinterred. In the sands of the Judaean desert, a tattered parchment, lost but legendary, has been discovered.One reveals the secrets of Heaven. One foretells an impending Hell.Together they have unleashed an abominable power into the world. And deciphering their message has been left to paleontologist Carter Cox—a man of science whose faith in the empi...

A witty and candid firsthand account -- for writers by a writer -- on how to write, sell, publish, and promote a book.This invaluable book is written by a working writer -- not a professor, not a publisher, not an editor, not an agent. Robert Masello is a writer who speaks his mind with absolute candor on everything aspiring book authors need to know. He explains the publishing process step by step -what to expect, how it works, and what authors can do at each point to keep things g...

A manuscript illuminated with fantastical creatures said to have roamed the Garden of Eden, the bestiary has been handed down throughout the centuries by one of the Arab world's most prominent families. Commissioned to restore it is the beautiful young art curator, Beth Cox.But it is Beth's husband, Carter—a paleontologist making his own dire discoveries in Los Angeles's famed La Brea Tar Pits—who will be led by the bestiary into a living, breathing menagerie of wonders…and horrors...

The gates between life and death have been opened. Musician Jack Logan holds the key. In the streets of New York, he brought a man back from the dead—in plain and shocking sight of a TV news camera crew. Now the whole world is aware of his miraculous power. The media wants to expose him; the scientists to exploit him. But worst of all, the tortured souls of the dead—including his own mother—are reaching out from the void, luring him into the eternal domain, transforming his gift into the u...

Everyone hides a secret from the past . . . but Lucien's secret is inescapable. A living thing that has followed him across the world, from the horrors of Southeast Asia to the penthouse suites of the rich and famous. Everyone craves money, power, and sex . . . but Lucien can satisfy his every urge, every decadent impulse, every erotic whim—for a price. Everyone has private demons . . . but Lucien's demon is all too real. All too powerful. All too hungry . . . for human souls.

An occultism reference chronicling the quest for metaphysical truth, from astronomers to astrologers, necromancers to sorcerers, alchemists to prophets.If the history of black magic and the occult reveals anything, it's that the drive to marshal the unseen powers of the dark, and bend them to mortal will, is as old as mankind itself. Men and women have believed, in virtually every age and in every land, that there is another world—a world of spirits and souls, angel...

"My name is Legion: for we are many." —Mark 5:9They have been with us since the beginning of time. Walking the centuries in our myths, our art, our literature . . . and in our dreams. Victims of temptation and sin, they are spirits who fell from heaven's grace, emerging anew as servants of darkness. Here, in one spellbinding volume, are the most infamous denizens of the Underworld—from Lucifer, the first angel who challenged God's will, to the fathomless legions of...

Although there's no shortage of books on writing and publishing, there's none quite like Robert's Rules of Writing. Drawing on his many years of experience as an award-winning journalist, TV writer, and the author of over twenty books, Robert Masello addresses all the issues that confront, and all the problems that beset, writers of all stripes.Whether you're working on a novel or a script, a memoir or a blog, an epic poem or a newspaper piece, you're going to have to find...

Journalist Michael Wilde—his world recently shattered by tragedy—has come to the South Pole looking for solace and a new lease on life. But what he finds on a routine dive in the polar sea is something else entirely: the bodies of a young man and a young woman, bound with chains and sealed forever in a block of ice. Beside them is an ancient chest filled with a sinister cargo. Wilde’s search to unravel the mystery of this doomed couple will lead from the battlefields of the Crimean War to ...